Be aware that the ubiquitous listings you see in Google are

paid

adverts. Any company or individual can advertise here – there is no vetting whatsever by Google for financial services. If they were advertising UK mortgages then the ads would be covered by the FSA guidelines but as they are for International mortgages they are not.

It’s also worth noting that the more you are willing to pay for the ads the higher up your ad appears in the listings. Since UM (or LRSM) have been paying for these adverts for many years in the top position it goes without saying that these ads are making them more money than they cost.

Is this a genuine business of not? I am concerned that they have requetsed the up-front valuation fee and I have the words from the aforementioned stories resounding in my head!

To proceed or not to proceed? That is the question?!

I am of course unable to comment on other applications but mine was handled effectively, on time and in a professional manner.

J Cummings

At the risk of all publicity being good publicity, I would like to add my own experience to your list of disgruntled people that have contacted Mark Foreman, MD of himself and one other person company Ubiquitous Mortgages.

I read the comments here and thought that it was a rival posting letters to attract business to themselves instead of Ubiquitous. I was hoping to add to the positive comment from Marianne but no such luck. The yen mortgage is a much cheaper option that a Euro mortgage – that is if you ever get one. If you do apply to Ubiquitous DO NOT get an AVM – i.e. a computerised valuation, pay for a full valuation. The computer program is not clever enough to know the difference between a 3 bedroom apartment 5 minutes from the sea or a 3 bedroom apartment on the local council estate.

I approached Ubiquitous – got their “These are exciting times” reply, I was then given a quote and paid for the AVM. It also says on their web site that if this is more than 18% too low, if you get another valuation the cost of this will be refunded. Well the AVM valuation came out at exactly 18% below the market value. Normally these valuations take 4 weeks to complete but for another 95 Euros they will rush it through in 2 weeks. So you pay 416 Euros which is more than most other valuations.

Ubiquitous gave me a ‘Decision in Principal’ which was dependant on this valuation, when it came out too low I asked if they would lend me the agreed 80% of their valuation, planning to raise the rest in the UK. But no, this was not possible. The mortgage goes through a Henry Braithwaite of Dominion Finance but he won’t talk to you/reply to e-mails. The next attempt was to send some estate agent valuations for similar properties with a higher price. After several more days this was not acceptable. Next we tried getting an old valuation for another property in the same complex but no – after several more days. that was not acceptable. I had repeatedly asked Mark or Alicia to get another valuer lined up so that a visit valuation could be arranged quickly but this was ignored. It says on the web site that if you already have a valuation then this can be used. Mark says this is not correct – yet repeatedly you are told that all the information is on their web site.

When I repeated my request to get another valuation done (at my expense) I was then told that there was no guarantee that the original ‘Decision in Principal’ still held and even if I did get a proper valuation there was no guarantee that Dominion would still lend. A you can imagine after all this time I am in danger of losing my holiday home and gave up with Ubiquitous and found a broker who could get things done quickly and also responds to e-mails the same day.

Oh and by the way forget phoning them, they have an 0845 number with a UK operator who tries to put you through but not once did I succeed. Once I did get a call returned but all ‘difficult’ questions were avoided and then oops we were cut off.

It is correct to say that she applied to me for a loan in or around August 2009. Again, I believe that she was extremely over optimistic of the property value. I was informed that the property was valued between 450k and 595k Euros, yet Suzanne was able to buy it for 320k. If it’s worth 600k who would sell it for 50% less?

Unfortunately, experience shows that the marketing campaigns of real estate agents referring to values when they were at their peak bears very little relationship to values on the ground right now.

We went to great lengths to get this application through to include considering some UK property as further security. However, the lender did not wish to get involved with all the legalities and complications involved with using UK assets as security for a Spanish property.

As always, if applicants are not happy with the valuation figure and they truly believe that the property should be valued at a considerably higher figure we can have a formal on site valuation done. This does not prejudice their position since they need it for a loan anyway. And if there is a material difference they are refunded the valuation fee! Again this offer was not taken up…

I find it unfortunate that declined applicants refer to the word “scam” simply because they were declined a loan. This forum has so far (in the space of 22 months) since Clive Ballards comments unearthed 5 dissatisfied clients. My God, they should have seen the list of declines when we were using the Spanish banks for mortgages.

During this 22 month period we have completed in excess of a 1000 mortgages across wide ranging countries and received almost 20,000 enquiries. So it’s a case of perspective.

That said, I receive applications for my products that far exceed funds available, so please, if you have any concerns whatsoever please apply for a traditional loan with a high street bank!!!

Thank you

Mark Foreman

Managing Director

I can only imagine the company changed it’s name to escape the negative comments that could be found on a google search from February onwards.

It was reading those that confirmed to us that we had been scammed.

However a comforting thought is that many people are now aware of this company and its changing forms and will steer well clear.

Let’s hope for Mark sake that he doesn’t scam someone dodgier than himself, I’ve heard there are some very deep lakes in Florida!